rities of the key-board, rolling up as it were, the Sisyphean stone of harmony only to have it roll back again, like the torment of Hades, he found a genuine solace in the contemplation of the waxen Lady; his day's monotonous labor and nervous strain were alleviated by the recollection of her calm and seraphic loveliness. She had blue eyes; blue was his favorite color, as he proved by tieing a large blue cravat around. his collar on Sunday mornings. She had gradually come to represent his ideal: if he could only find some such woman on earth to be his companion! But he had never found one; he scanned the maidens of his acquaintance they were not many -but it was in vain; he had been on tumultuous Sunday picnics of his expatriated countrymen and wandered disconsolate among the groups made up of portly papas and their still portlier Hausfraus with buxom lassies giving promise of becoming as portly as their parents, but nowhere among these flaxenhaired Mädchen did he find one that corresponded even remotely to the svelte grace and exquisite complexion of his waxen Lady.

The assistant in the Dolls' Hospital was a French girl. She had expressive turquoise eyes-her one pretty feature-and a large mouth which in no respect belied its proverbial index of generosity. She was far from slender and her heart beat with full throbs of motherliness. At her own humble home, no disabled cat or dog was ever allowed to go unattended; animals. instinctively came to her for comfort and assistance. As a child she had been passionately fond of dolls this was only a symptom that if ever she should marry and have children, she would make

them a most devoted and affectionate mother.

She spent her days in an upper room in a large building, engaged in performing the most delicate surgical operations. Behind her on the wall hung strips of pink legs and arms, looking from a little distance like uncooked sausages; in boxes. on the shelf near her were as many scalps as ever adorned the teepee of a Comanche chieftain. So when beautiful French dolls came to her, suffering from apparently mortal accidents, she would calmly and lovingly replace dislocated and fractured limbs, she would show all the skill of a trained surgeon in trephining broken skulls or removing the vermiform appendix and the poor little unfortunate creature rolling up its smiling eyes and uttering its attenuated squeak of helplessness would, after a few days of convalescence, be returned to its ownerperhaps at the Holiday seasonwith a renewed complexion, with a fresh growth of straw-colored curls as good as new or better, and with all the possibilities of social advancement.

Marie, for of course her name was Maric, was extraordinarily deft with her fingers and she earned good wages, but she had a sick father so that she had little money to spend on her own toilette, though what she wore was always neat and she was gifted with that peculiar chic natural to her nation and tribe which made her cheap and shabby clothes look well-fitting.

There was something that had wonderfully captivated her in the waxen Gentleman. She liked wellfitting raiment whether worn by man or woman, and the waxen Gentleman was faultless in that respect and, moreover, the modeler

who had created his form and face had by one supreme effort of the genius given the features a remarkable air of distinction; an aristocratic hauteur blended with the finer qualities of intellectuality: at least so she imagined. In her own romantic and sentimental manner she haloed him with noble lineage, pretended that he was a French count, called him M. le comte Hyacinthe Belétage de Mont Lepelletier de Richepin and ardently wished that some pitying divinity would endue him with life, would enable those shapely limbs of his to move, that Cupid's bow of a mouth of his to open and utter in her ear the words which she burned to hear. She idealized her waxen count, thought of him as the only son of a rich old widow dwelling on their ancestral estate just near enough to dear Paris to run in and out as easily as she passed to and from her suburban home. She knew that if he would only stoop to her, she would atone for the mésalliance by such devotion as never woman had shown before; she would endure all the snubs that the haughty bellemere might put upon her, would heap coals of fire on her head by unremitting attentions while the old lady should be sick and finally quite win her heart, especially after she should present her lord and master Iwith such a beautiful heir as the whole French republic or the old French empire had never seen.

So there would she stand with hands tightly clasped and exclaim under her breath in her soft bewitching voice, in her daintiest French accent: "Oh mon adorable comte Hyacinthe!" And then she would go to her work, her heart filled with dreams of what might be and what might never be. And she

gave to her sick and dislocated, maimed and battered dolls all the care that she would have given to her own children. Thus her motherly heart found expression.

III.

If there was any one fierce and rebellious feeling in Marie's gentle breast it was hatred of the Germans. She could never forgive them for having robbed her dear France of Alsace and Lorraine. She had read Daudet's "Derniere Classe" and the pathetic story of the old Alsatian school-master had filled her eyes with tears and her heart with indignation.

As for Hans, he never dreamed of a French woman; the whole sex, as far as that portion went that called itself Francaise, did not exist for him. He would stand in front of his waxen ideal, softly repeating his "Ach! wie schën! kolossal!" She was the ideal of a German spirit dwelling in a lovely form.

So weeks rolled by: dozens of pianos came to Hans discordant, jangled, inharmonious, like insane patients and went forth from his patient touch sane, and musical. Hundreds of dilapidated dolls emerged from the hospital clothed and in their right wigs, with new fresh legs and arms and all their sawdust vitals in good working order.

Meantime Marie's father died and she was left alone and after she had paid the expenses of his funeral and most of the back debts to the doctor and apothecary and the patient dealers in coal and groceries, she was enabled to make a little improvement in her own wardrobe. She had a new dark suit that was very becoming and though saddened by her recent bereavement, as she was now relieved of the night care

of the old man she was growing steadily better in color; a new light was beginning to grow in her lovely eyes, and her cheeks had a soft flush in them, rendered more perceptible by the very becoming hat she wore.

Still Hans worshipped at the plate glass shrine; his waxen Lady had changed her gown; the Spring styles had come out and his beatific Mädchen had put on a dainty robe of soft pearl gray and on her head she had a glorious bonnet-in every sense of the word the toque of the town-and over her shoulder she wore a violet sunshade: "Ach! if only she could schtep down from her heights into the schtreet I vould follow her to the ends of the earth," murmured Hans's susceptible heart.

Across the way, the waxen Gentleman had also donned a spring suit with a light drab top coat; in one hand he carried his gloves, and Marie admired the aristocratic nails, the plump roundness of the taper fingers: "Mon Dieu! que belles mains que celles de mon bon comte Hyacinthe!" she would murmur.

But Count Hyacinthe had eyes only for his sweet marquise who as faithfully as ever waited for the magic word that would make her his and him hers forever!

One beautiful Spring afternoon, the hapless adorers, Marie and Hans met face to face on the crossing. How many hundred times they had passed each other no one can tell. But this time the god or the goddess of Love, the influence of their approaching planets, Fate or whatever it was, resolved to take a hand in the quadruple comicotragedy. Hans tried to turn out for Marie, Marie for Hans; and while they stood rather awkwardly en

deavoring to dodge each other, a pair of handsome horses came up with reckless speed and Hans with more gallantry than is common among the men of his nationality, seeing that the young lady was in imminent danger, suddenly seized her in his strong arms and lifting her from her feet set her down. gently on the side-walk. She appreciated his courtesy and flashed upon him a look of gratitude; her lovely cerulean eyes beamed upon him; a broad smile suddenly showed her firm white teeth and her "Thank you, sair" was spoken in tones that made his heart strings vibrate.

They parted and made their way to their daily labors but each had something unusual to think about. Trifles change the whole current of a person's life! Marie felt as if she had been delivered from sudden death or at least as if her new gown had been saved. And Hans remembered that exquisitely modulated voice and the heavenly blue of those two large eyes.

After that they met every day and nodded to each other; gradually their greetings became more intimate and then at last they stopped and spoke. He had no resentment that she was French, she had the eyes of his waxen ideal; but to her it was a bitter disappointment that the hero of whom she had dreamed more than once, dreamed of his rescuing her from greater perils,about whom, in spite of his prosaic appearance, and his appalling contrast in dress, in height, in face, in everything to her waxen count, she had woven a net work of romantic thoughts, should be a German. Still he had been her rescuer; she was grateful to him and at last she let him walk home with her one

afternoon and another afternoon and another time she allowed him to take her to the park and insensibly without knowing how or why she began to look forward to seeing him.

Several times she accused him vivaciously of having helped rob her of the two provinces that she felt so keenly ought to be restored. But he, instead of arguing that they had been German before ever they were French and that their recovery by Germany was only an act of long delayed justice, looked guilty and humble and said so honestly "Ach! Mein Gott, if I only could, I vould giff them back to you"; and withal he was so honest and so good; and he tuned her old piano and kept it in tune and he liked the music of Massenet and Chaminade and Augusta Holmès and he sang in his high tenor voice such beautiful songs that he almost made her forget her first love-the oblivious. waxen count.

As for Hans the presence of living flesh and blood, the vague evanescent perfume that floated around Marie, the touch of her sympathetic hand, her piquante ways, her vivacity, her gay laugh, her contrast to anything he had ever seen before in his life, made him now look almost scornfully on the beauteous effigy about which he had erstwhile. so vainly and passionately dreamed.

One Sunday, Hans and Marie were strolling in the park. It was a perfect day in the early summer. A wood-thrush was uttering his clear bell tones from the top of a tall elm; down in the meadow the bobolinks were pouring out their gurgling notes; the shadows of soft white clouds chased one another across the long slopes. Hans and Marie sat down on the bank of a little brook that came joyously out into the open air and ran tumultu

ously down the hillside. Marie's hand lay temptingly near; there was no one in sight. He timidly took it and raised it to his honest lips. Marie, with transparent coquetry seemed suddenly absorbed in watching a flock of crows that were circling around a pine tree. She did not draw her hand away. She knew what was coming and she had already made up her mind.

But when poor Hans, embarrassed and stammering and blushing, said: "Fräulein Marie, I luff you," she looked at him out of the corner of her eyes; the sense of the ludicrous suddenly asserted itself. The thought that she should be listening to an awkward declaration of love from one of that detested German race was too much for her; she laughed a ringing laugh, exclaiming "Don't call me Fräulein-it is horrible"! Then with a sudden impulse patted Hans on the cheek. He did not know what to make of her mood and he said in a sort of aggrieved tone: "Vy do you laugh at me, Fräulein Marie: I dell you I luff you."

"I will not be called Fräulein Marie, I have told you so," she repeated, affecting a great show of indignation and, in her soft musical clear voice, she went on: "Why, meester von Below how can you have ze audace to tell me zet you luff me?"

"But I do" he asserted, gathering courage.

"What have I ever done" she asked "to make you sink zat I would leesten to such a declaration? Besides," she added with a happy inspiration of her native coquetry, "I have promised myself to marry ze Comte Hyacinthe de-."

"Who is he?" demanded Hans

with a great access of jealousy, falling into the trap which Marie had so deftly prepared.

"Oh! he is so handsome!" exclaimed Marie ecstatically clasping her plump hands.

"Denn I go home" said Hans, a tragic look causing a shadow to cloud his honest face.

"Wait a leetle meenute" cried Marie laying her hand on his sleeve.

"My ravissant Comte Hyacinthe-did I tell you his whole name?-iss made all of wax" and Marie again laughed with that delectable laugh which was as musical as the song of the scarlet tanager in the neighboring bush.

Then she prettily confessed her hapless passion for the waxen Gentleman; and Hans might have himself made a like confession but something restrained him and he kept it to himself, for while her confession was a sort of idyl, his yearning for the waxen Lady seemed to him a sacrilege, now that he had found its living, breathing, gracious substitute. So he held his peace.

He still felt awkward and abashed but he had the wit to get hold of her hand again and, as she did not take it away, he said:

"You know I luff you and you have known it a long time and I want you to marry me."

"What! I marry a German?

Nevair!"

"Denn, let me marry you!" he said, recognizing perhaps in her overdramatic accent that she was not quite serious.

"Zis iss zey new siege of Paris" she exclaimed at last and with a deep sigh, "I suppose it iss ze Fate of poor France to give up to ze horrid Germans!"

He boldly took Marie into his arms and gave her a resounding

German smack. Such an unusual noise scared a frog into the water: it disappeared with a splash and doubtless told all its neighbors and friends of the queer ways of a man with a maid.

Marie could not help herself. The soft loveliness of the day; the balmy air, full of the fragrance of Summer flowers, the songs of the mating birds, the passionate longings of her own heart, the eager wooing of her ardent lover, so genuine, so honest, so wholesome, so naïf, so comical and at the same time so satisfying, made all opposition melt as a snow flake melts in a sun beam.

She suddenly tore herself away from the circling pressure of his strong arms, jumped to her feet and exclaimed:

"Eh, Bien! I will marry you but come let us walk and remember zis: you are nevair to call me Fräulein Marie!"

"Why should I-now?" asked Hans innocently.

"And I shall nevair call you Hans. You shall always be to me Maximilien-my Max, my dear good Max!" and she gave his hand such. a thrilling pressure that Hans went up to the seventh heaven!

.IV.

The hot Summer weather was peculiarly trying to the Waxen Gentleman and Waxen Lady. There were awnings over the big plateglass windows but the heat penetrated; it was reflected from the wide side-walks starred with glittering bulls-eyes; it came in through the open doors. The light garb they wore failed to mitigate its torment. The jaunty straw hat which Comte Hyacinthe had donned was a burden to his clustering